i'm on my knees, your faith in shreds
by Stoneage Woman
Summary: Post season 5 canon divergence AU. As the last survivors of humanity try to make a fresh beginning on a new, deserted planet, Bellamy tries to find his way back to a lonely, distant Clarke. A life-threatening crisis opens his eyes to a few hard truths. A Bellarke reconciliation fic.


**i'm on my knees, your faith in shreds**

* * *

_Alone in the wind and the rain you left me_

_It's getting dark darling, too dark to see_

_And I'm on my knees, and your faith in shreds, it seems_

\- Mumford and Sons, _Thistle and Weeds_

* * *

A/N:

This is a post-Season 5 Canon Divergence AU and a Bellarke reconciliation fic. It was supposed to be finished before Season 6 began airing, but life happened and I ended up finishing it months later than I was supposed to. This is set in an AU world where the new planet Monty found is completely deserted and uninhabited, so all they really have to do is try to survive there, set up camp and heal from everything that happened in Season 5. I have avoided spoilers from Season 6 and haven't watched any of the latest episodes, so please disregard any consistencies that are a result of that.

**Trigger warning for references to suicide. **

* * *

_Alone in the wind and the rain you left me_

_It's getting dark darling, too dark to see_

_And I'm on my knees, and your faith in shreds, it seems_

\- Mumford and Sons, _Thistle and Weeds_

* * *

Their new planet is starkly beautiful but very different from Earth. For one thing, it's _massive_\- three times the size of Earth according to Eligius IV's navigational system. The days are intensely hot and seem to stretch on without end, a full twenty hours of bright sunlight. The nights are shorter and colder, hours of luminescent twilight giving way to a brief six hour window of total darkness before the first of the two suns begins its ascent.

Water isn't a problem, thankfully. Raven and Shaw landed the spaceship near the largest inland water body they could find, so the surrounding area has several patches of green. There are no trees anywhere in sight, though, and Bellamy feels a slight pang as he realizes that he will probably never again see anything like the lush rainforests they'd had back on Earth.

The land is dry and arid, covered with rolling hills of sand that give way to patches of sparse, bushy vegetation, some of which is actually edible, though unfortunately, not much more palatable than Monty's algae. Jordan takes charge of preparing their meals, revealing that his father had taught him everything he knew about farming before he put him in cryo. He promises to help them with growing new crops with so much enthusiasm that it brings a lump to Bellamy's throat, reminding him strongly of his old friend.

Jordan seems like such a happy kid, fascinated by everything and everyone around him. He makes friends quickly; he's the only living person who hasn't lived through multiple wars, and it shows in the brightness of his smile.

"Monty and Harper would have loved this," Clarke says softly, her eyes over-bright as she stares into the simmering horizon.

Bellamy glances in her direction, wonders what she's thinking. He aches to ask her, but can't find the words, the distance of six years still painful between them. It shouldn't surprise him, but for a moment there, when he'd stood at Clarke's side by the window and they'd looked down at their new home together, he had felt like they were a team again, no barriers between them.

Then they'd woken everyone else and everything had changed. Clarke had withdrawn immediately, throwing up her walls and shutting him out. He knows it was naive of him to assume things could just go back to the way they were after everything that's happened, but he still wishes they could.

"I hope we can live up to what they wanted," he says quietly, and she nods her agreement.

* * *

Surprisingly, there are no traces of human habitation anywhere on the planet, no indications that Eligius III or anyone else ever made it here. Bellamy can't help but be relieved about that.

The prospect of inadvertently causing another war by accidentally gatecrashing the home of an existing population they knew nothing about, _yet_ _again_, had kept him up for several sleepless nights, but it turns out it's pretty easy not to go to war when there's no one to go to war with_._

It helps that the remaining survivors of humanity are simply too exhausted to pick another fight with anyone. Bellamy worries at first that it will be impossible to build a peaceful existence when so many of them have so recently been on opposing sides of a war, but it just makes everyone that much more reticent and careful about starting conflicts.

The Eligius IV crew should have been the biggest problem, but they've been looking for survivable land for centuries. Now that they've found it again, Diyoza isn't about to let them fuck things up a second time.

She remains a leader to her own people but doesn't try to be more than that, deferring to the council's big decisions with a lot more humility than Bellamy had been expecting. Her belly grows larger every day, and Bellamy marvels sometimes at life's poetic irony, at the fact that somehow, the same child whose father ended life on Earth will be the first life on this new planet.

The Grounders are even less inclined to go to war than the Eligius IV crew, which doesn't surprise Bellamy given everything their people have been through in the last few years. With Octavia stepping deliberately away from leadership and Madi's example to follow, they seem more than willing to embrace peace.

Grudges are still there, simmering in the background. Most of the different factions stick to themselves, never interacting more than necessary. Bellamy can accept that; he himself has barely spoken two words to Octavia. So far, she's kept her distance from him, but he sometimes catches her watching him with sad, haunted eyes. It makes him uncomfortable but doesn't change his feelings about her. He needs time to get over that betrayal, and he has it now.

With all the existing factions and bad blood between people, the six members of Spacekru become de-facto leaders and go-betweens for the Wonkru and Eligius IV camps. They are the only ones still begrudgingly trusted by all sides. Madi, Shaw, Indra, Niylah and Clarke make up the rest of the council.

Kane and Abby are both still in cryosleep. It's the first time in years they've both been completely absent from some kind of leadership position, though it's not by anyone's choice. Kane is still severely injured and they don't have the necessary supplies for his surgery, and as for Abby, Clarke and Raven both insist it's too risky to wake her up and risk her relapsing when they don't have the meds to help her through another round of detox.

Bellamy wishes the circumstances were different, but he can't deny that he's a little relieved. Kane and Abby are both strong, compelling leaders, but they also have a habit of making drastic decisions for the "greater good" that send people and events spiraling out of control. Bellamy can't help but feel that their particular brand of leadership doesn't belong in this new future. It feels right that they are not a part of the council.

What _doesn't_ feel right is Clarke's uneasy position on the council. No one can deny that she has a place there, but the tension and resentment still festering between Clarke and the others are too powerful and bitter. The hostility doesn't come from everyone, thankfully; Murphy and Emori still treat Clarke the same, and Indra doesn't care enough to treat her differently. Shaw and Niylah usually limit their interactions with her to a kind of awkward politeness, but Raven and Echo are openly hostile, fighting Clarke on every suggestion she makes.

Bellamy still doesn't know the full story of what happened between them in the caves, but whatever it was, it's clearly bad enough that neither Raven nor Echo can seem to let it go. He tries to bring it up with Raven first, telling her they should let the past stay in the past. She's adamant, though, saying that even if she could forgive Clarke for leaving Bellamy behind, she can't forgive her for what it almost cost Shaw.

Bellamy knows it's hard for her to see Shaw's mobility compromised- he's still using crutches as his leg heals- but he also knows it's not the real reason for Raven's anger and bitterness. He knows her pretty well by now after six years in space, and he recognizes what she won't admit, even to herself: it's not Clarke's betrayal but what it did to her, the fact that she almost broke under torture and told McCreary everything he needed to know that Raven can't accept.

Echo is no less stubborn than Raven, for very different reasons. She can't forgive the fact that Clarke left him to die in Polis. Bellamy appreciates the loyalty but despairs the implacable intensity of her anger.

For her part, Clarke remains coolly nonreactive in the face of their hostility, ignoring their relentless sniping and continuing to offer her help and advice. She's the only one besides Madi who has actually had any experience surviving a deserted planet on her own, so her insights are invaluable, but Raven and Echo question her constantly, taking issue with even her most pragmatic and common sense suggestions.

Eventually, even Clarke's iron-willed composure cracks in the face of their antagonism.

Two weeks after landing, they are gathered in Bellamy and Echo's tent as they try to figure out their next steps now that everyone has started settling in. Indra insists it's time for them to go exploring and see what the land has to offer them.

"We can't survive here without more resources," she argues. "We have to find trees and wood to build and heat more permanent homes- we can't just live in tents indefinitely. We have to catalogue the plant and animal life, find things we can use as medicine so we can try to get the injured out of cryosleep and treat them. It can't be delayed anymore."

Gaia is one of the thirty injured people still in cryo, so it makes sense that Indra is insisting on this. Despite her personal stake, Bellamy knows she's also right. They can't just leave their people stuck in limbo indefinitely, but the thought of anyone venturing out into the unknown makes his stomach clench with dread and anxiety.

Clarke agrees with his misgivings. "We should wait on any exploratory missions for now," she says firmly. "We don't know what's out there and we have everything we really need here in the short term. The vegetation might taste disgusting, but it's filling and nutritious, and the fish in the lake will keep us fed."

"The nights are already too cold, Clarke," Echo points out. "It will get even worse when winter hits, though the season probably won't be as severe as it was on Earth. It would be a different matter if we could just house everyone in Eligius IV, but we can't afford to waste that much energy on central heating, not if we have to keep the cryo-pods running too. It's only a matter of time before someone is hurt worse than we can fix with the resources we have available, and what are we going to do then?"

"No one wants to find supplies more than I do," Clarke reminds her heatedly. "My mother's stuck in cryo too, remember? But before we go venturing off into potentially hostile territory, we need more radios. Most of them were left behind on Earth when we ran so we only have four left. Two of those aren't even working properly. The last thing we need is for someone to be caught out there without one during a sandstorm. We can't risk leaving people stranded in that kind of weather."

"And since when are you so concerned about leaving people stranded?" Raven tells her angrily.

Clarke reels back, her face draining of all color as she catches her meaning. Her eyes flicker towards Bellamy and then she fixes her eyes on the floor at her feet, her breathing choppy and uneven.

"_Hey,"_ Bellamy protests, as shocked by the intensity of Clarke's reaction as he is by Raven's sudden viciousness. "Knock it off, Rav. That's over the line."

"Bringing up the past is pointless," Madi agrees, frowning at Raven and Echo with obvious displeasure. "Besides, Clarke is right about the radios."

"_Heda_, I just don't think-"

Clarke interrupts suddenly, holding her palms up in surrender. "No. You know what? Let's _not_ do this again. It's clear that my presence at these meetings is creating more problems than solutions, so I'm taking myself out of the equation. I'm sure that you're all...more than capable of leading humanity into this bright new future without me." With a bitter twist to her lips, she turns on her heel and strides out of the tent.

"Clarke, wait!" Madi rushes after her, casting a disappointed look behind her.

Bellamy starts to follow, but he's stopped by Murphy's hand on his arm. "Don't," he says in a low voice. "She's right. You can talk to her later; get her advice and relay it back to us. Her being at these sessions isn't helping anyone right now. We're taking twice as long to get anything done because of all these arguments." His eyes grow fierce and he adds, "Besides, I'm tired of seeing her get hurt."

The words hit Bellamy hard. The fight goes out of him and his shoulders slump in defeat. Taking a deep breath, he turns to face the others.

"Alright," he says, fixing Raven and Echo with a hard look that dares them to argue. "Raven, how much time are you going to need to make those radios? We're going to need at least ten before we can send a team out there."

"I'm not sure," she says after a slight pause, not quite meeting his eyes. "Shaw and I would have to check what's available."

They wind up the meeting quickly, Murphy showing rare self-restraint by refraining from making a snarky comment about how they all ended up following Clarke's plan anyway. Bellamy has to bite back his own words on the subject, the image of Clarke's tired, bitter smile refusing to leave him alone.

When everyone else is gone, he makes no attempt to hide his anger from Echo.

"You gonna glare at me all night?" she asks eventually, frowning at him. "I won't apologize for not trusting her. She's given plenty of cause."

"And yet we still did what she suggested," he says curtly, "because she was right and it made sense. She should be on the council and you know it."

"She betrayed us all-"

"She betrayed _me,_" he interrupts hotly, "And _I_ let it go, so you don't get to keep holding this grudge on my behalf, Echo. That's not fair to me or to her, especially when you-"

He cuts himself off before he can finish the thought, knowing it's hitting below the belt, but she hears it anyway. Hurt and shame flit across her face. "Especially when I betrayed you first?" she asks. "Is that what you were going to say?"

"Echo, I didn't mean-"

"You're right," she interrupts evenly. "I did betray you first, and I betrayed my king, and I _don't_ have a right to hold a grudge against her. I wish I could be as forgiving as you, but you're a far better person than I am, Bellamy. You always have been."

"What do you mean?" he asks, startled.

She meets his gaze with a pained expression. "I know you were both…close…before Praimfaya." His breath catches, shocked that she would go there. It's not something he even likes to think about; how in sync he and Clarke had been in those months leading up to the end of the world and where it could have gone if they'd just had more time.

"I know I don't have the right to ask why you forgave her, not after you forgave me for worse_,_" Echo continues. "That's who you are, Bellamy, and I love you for it, but I'm not you. You are my _kru_, my family, and you know there is nothing I won't do, no line I won't cross, for my _kru._ I know she saved us all, but she also left you behind to die. I can't let that go."

The force of her words transport him back to six years ago, reminding him of the woman who had had twice attempted to kill his own sister and broken every code of honor she had to save her king and her people.

The burden of her terrible loyalty is his, now, for good or ill. He's lost for what to say in the face of it, so he lapses back into silence, letting the issue lie unresolved, at least for now.

* * *

When Bellamy finally manages to track down Clarke the day is winding down.

He finds her sitting outside her tent on one of the empty crates from Eligius IV that had once held heavy duty ammunition and artillery. A second empty crate sits next to Clarke's, and he sits down beside her without invitation.

She acknowledges him with a soft sound of greeting, her eyes fixed on the breathtaking sight of the twilight sky as the second sun sinks slowly into a deep, violet horizon. The clouds are sparse and the stars are beginning to shine down on them.

Bellamy's gaze sweeps across the rest of their camp, watching people talking or laughing in small groups, sitting cross-legged on the floor or on crates. This is the only time of day when it's not too hot to be outside, and everyone is taking advantage of it.

His eyes fall on Madi sitting several tents away, deep in conversation with Indra and Niylah. Bellamy knows they must be talking about her training. He wonders how Clarke feels about that; if she still hates the idea of Madi as the commander and how much it takes her daughter away from her. Not that she has any say in the matter because that ship sailed the day Madi fully embraced the Flame.

His heart aches suddenly at her profound solitariness. Even her tent is pitched separately from the others, right on the edge of the camp. It feels wrong. This isn't how it was supposed to be. Monty and Harper would be so disappointed in them.

"I'm sorry for what happened today," he says. "They were out of line, especially Raven."

Clarke's shoulders go stiff, her eyes dropping to study the ground beneath her feet. "She didn't say anything that wasn't true. I left you behind."

"Hey, _no,_" he says forcefully, laying a hand on her arm. She looks up at him, startled at the contact. "Don't do that. Don't go there. I already forgave you, remember?"

"Why did you?" she asks, searching his face. "Forgive me, I mean. I left you there to die."

His breath catches in his throat. He can't bring himself to acknowledge the six years' worth of unanswered radio calls that Madi told him about, can't bring himself to face what it means. He settles instead for an older, more familiar guilt to answer her with. "I left you behind too."

"I won't pretend that it didn't hurt to watch you walking away from me while I was chained up and helpless," she says, nodding, "but you were only trying to save everyone. I do know that."

Now it's his turn to flinch. How fucked up is it that there are _multiple_ instances when he's abandoned her? "That wasn't what I meant," he says hoarsely. "Though I'm sorry for _that_ too, more than you know. I meant six years ago."

She's visibly shocked by his guilt. "That is _not_ on you," she says forcefully, "I chose to stay. Watching that ship take off was one of the worst things I've ever seen, but it was also a huge relief because I knew I'd saved you. And I should have said this earlier, but…" She takes a deep, fortifying breath, "I'm proud of you. For getting everyone out of there, for keeping them safe and fed and together, for building a family with them. I know it wasn't easy, but it's everything I knew you could be."

He stares at her, too moved to speak. He can't remember the last time she talked to him with this much honesty and openness, not since the day she put a hand on his chest and told him, _you've got such a big heart, Bellamy._

"Thank you," he says when he manages to compose himself. "That means a lot. So you...you actually _saw_ us take off, then?"

"Yeah," she replies. "I was up on the radio tower, so I could see everything clearly-"

"_Wait, what?" _he breaks in, appalled. "Why were you were up on the tower?"

"The dish needed to be manually adjusted," she explains with a sideways glance at him. "It was the only way to get you out of there."

Bellamy inhales sharply and clenches his eyes shut as he pictures her _climbing up_ to that height in that bulky suit, the world burning beneath her feet.

Watching them take off and leave her behind.

"_How…" _he begins in a strangled voice, then tries again. "How did you even _survive_?"

"I was able to get to Becca's lab," she says casually, like it was the easiest thing in the world. "I camped out there for a while until the radiation died down a little."

"And after? When did you find Eden, find Madi?"

Her entire body tenses at the questions, a wall slamming back up again. "I got lucky," she says evasively. "That's all. I'm going to go get Madi now. She needs a good night's sleep if she's going to be sparring with Indra tomorrow."

She gets up and walks away without a backward glance, leaving him staring helplessly after her, wondering what he's said.

* * *

Clarke doesn't quite _avoid_ him in the week that follows, but he gets the feeling that it's only because she's so busy she doesn't really have to try to find excuses to keep her distance. The weather takes a turn for the worse, bringing a whole host of new problems with it. The heat is scorching and the sandstorms seem to pick up in intensity and frequency, coming out of nowhere and blowing on for hours at a time.

The infirmary in Eligius IV is suddenly flooded with new patients. Fifteen people get heat stroke and thirteen more come down with severe cases of what Clarke diagnoses grimly as "Desert Fever." She insists it's not serious, but the illness is undeniably brutal, causing angry rashes, high fever, severe coughing, nausea and shortness of breath. With very few meds left, they have few ways to effectively relieve the symptoms, so the recovery is long, slow and painful.

Clarke works tirelessly with Jackson and a few other volunteers to help make everyone as comfortable as possible, but there's only so much they can do. The entire camp is on edge and afraid of losing more loved ones to this new disease.

To make matters worse, Echo and Murphy get sick within days of each other. Bellamy, Raven, and Emori are frantic, maintaining a near constant presence in the infirmary.

Bellamy spends his time pacing up and down until Echo complains that she's making him dizzy, after which he forces himself to take a seat by her bedside. Raven and Emori sit near Murphy, Raven's fingers frantically piecing together machine scraps as she assembles one of the radios Clarke said they needed.

Clarke is tactful enough not to comment. In fact, she barely says a word more than necessary when she comes to check on them, but Bellamy notices her eyes lingering anxiously on the two newly built radios sitting next to Raven, obviously worried that they will go off unprepared and get themselves killed. Bellamy would be lying if he said he hasn't considered doing just that. It's awful watching his friends suffer through this illness without an actual treatment, but Clarke insists there's nothing to worry about.

"We just have to let it run its course," she says when pressed, "Not even antifungal medication would do much more than treating the symptoms, and we're running too low on that to use it except in an emergency. They'll all recover with time."

"How do you know that for sure?" Echo demands belligerently. She looks terrible, face flushed and skin soaked with sweat, her braids undone and tangled into a rat's nest. Bellamy, sitting beside her, lays a calming hand on her thigh, but she barely seems to notice.

Clarke does, her eyes flickering downwards for a brief second before she pulls her gaze up to meet Echo's. Bellamy has to fight the urge to snatch his hand away.

"Desert Fever is caused by breathing in fungus growing in the dirt and sand," Clarke explains patiently, "A lot of people will get sick, but eventually our bodies _will_ acclimatize to it. That's why there have been no illnesses in Sangedakru, and that's why Emori probably won't get sick. They lived in the desert so their bodies are used to this. We'll get there too."

"You sound like you're talking from experience," Murphy says.

Clarke avoids looking at him as she stoops to prepare a saline drip. "The sandstorms were pretty bad after Praimfaya," she explains evenly. "Madi and I got sick a few times."

Bellamy feels like he's been drenched in ice cold water. The mere _thought_ of her coughing and feverish in a makeshift bed, alone on a planet with only a small child to help her...

"You were sick multiple times?" Emori asks, confused. "My brother and I experienced sandstorms, too, during our years as Wastelanders. We got sick- most Wastelander children did- but it was only once. After that, we were immune. It's strange that you and Madi didn't acclimatize after that first time."

"We did," a voice answers from behind them.

Bellamy turns to find Madi standing in the doorway. Dressed in Grounder attire, she looks every inch a commander of armies. Clarke's face lights up at the sight of her, years of exhaustion and tension falling away in an instant. Madi gives her a quick hug in greeting and then turns back to Emori and Echo.

"Desert Fever was bad, but our bodies adjusted to that eventually," she explains. "That wasn't the worst thing about those sandstorms. There was so much glass, flying everywhere- not just dust but whole shards of it. Clarke's arms got cut up so badly one time- remember, Clarke? When the rover gave out on us again and we had to walk the last few miles home? You gave me your jacket to protect me and your arms were covered with blood and glass by the time we got home."

"I remember," says Clarke, averting her gaze from their horrified expressions. Her hands tremble as she hangs up Murphy's saline drip.

"The glass dust was _awful_, too," Madi continues, making a disgusted face. "It got into everything; our clothes, our hair, our lungs. Breathing it in was _so _much worse than breathing in the sand. We both coughed up so much blood that night..."

_Fuck_, Bellamy thinks, feeling sick to his stomach. He's this close to begging Clarke's forgiveness again. Raven's hands are clenched into fists on the half-finished radio. Murphy looks stricken, and Echo is staring at Clarke as if she's never seen her before.

Clarke looks visibly uncomfortable when she takes in their reactions. "Madi, don't you have training now?" she asks in a transparently desperate attempt to change the subject, "You shouldn't keep Indra waiting."

"Yeah, that's why I came by, actually. Indra wants to talk to you." She grins. "Apparently I'm a _slightly_ better fighter than she was expecting, and she wants to know how much you taught me and where you learned to fight."

Clarke rolls her eyes at their surprised expressions. "Everyone always seems to forget that I've had the Flame in my head too," she says drily. "Where does she think I learned?"

The reminder brings Bellamy up short, because yeah, he realizes guiltily, he _had_ forgotten about that. It feels so long ago now, and so much shit had happened right after that, it had completely slipped his mind. Clarke's adamancy about Madi not taking the Flame suddenly makes a lot more sense.

"I should be able to fight like you too," Madi complains, sounding for once like the twelve-year-old kid she really is. "How come they won't teach me?"

"Sweetheart, you already _know_ how to fight," Clarke reminds her with a fond if long-suffering expression. "You've led an army into war, remember? The commanders never showed _me_ any military strategy, though it sure would have been more useful than hand to hand combat." She straightens up and turns towards Madi, holding out her hand. "But come on, I'll go with you. Indra deserves some explanation for why you're such a pain in the ass, _natblida_."

"More like a _badass_," Madi quips, grabbing Clarke's hand. She pulls her from the room, leaving the others to stare at each other as they try to process what they've just learned.

* * *

Things become a little easier between all of them after that conversation. The realization of some of the hardships she'd gone through on Earth soften them towards her. The outward, unrelenting hostility from Echo and Raven eases up a little.

After his recovery, Murphy and Emori begin to drop by the infirmary more often during the day, just to make small talk and see how she's doing. They never stay for long and they don't talk about anything very substantial, but Clarke seems to appreciate the company just the same.

Most of the patients recover from the Desert Fever after a week and a half. Seeing them up and about improves camp morale immensely. There's still a steady stream of patients falling ill every day, but the number of new cases begins to fall as people slowly become more experienced with protecting themselves from breathing in the sand. They wrap cloths over their faces when they're outside and reinforce the tents with whatever materials they have available, trying to make them as windproof as possible.

Bellamy makes it a point to check in with Clarke regularly, too, keeping her updated on the council meetings and getting her advice on various decisions. He finds himself breathing a little easier as time goes by.

Maybe, he thinks, they are finally catching a break.

Of course, that's when the next crisis hits.

A young Grounder couple from Trikru goes wandering away from the camp one day. Apparently, they got tired of their flimsy shelters and wanted to look for firewood to heat their tents during the short, chilly nights. When they fail to return after eight hours their friends alert the council, who immediately organize a search and rescue team comprising Emori, Murphy, Echo, and half a dozen Trikru warriors. They are trying to only send out people who have been exposed to Desert Fever, so Bellamy is forced to stay behind.

The rest of the camp wait for their return anxiously. When they do, it's with grim faces and carrying two stretchers between them. Clarke and Jackson both rush forward to help, but Murphy is already shaking his head. "They're gone. We were too late."

"_Goddamnit!"_

There are cries of shock and grief at the pronouncement. A woman sinks to the floor, her face buried in her hands, shoulders shaking, while a man clasps a limp hand in his and closes the dead woman's eyes, his lips moving silently on the words, _ai gonlei ste odon._

Bellamy didn't know either of them but feels the weight of their deaths just the same. He knows this will be a huge blow to the entire camp, to lose more of their people here, in peacetime.

"What happened?" Clarke's eyes rake over the bodies with a doctor's eye, searching for signs of injury.

"We think it was some kind of insect, maybe a snake bite," Emori answers. "They both have puncture wounds on their bodies."

"Where did you find them?"

"In an outcropping half a day's walk from here," says Murphy. "They did manage to find some firewood. The terrain is a little different from here. We saw a few short trees with thick, dry bark. We could probably use it for building and for firewood; they seemed pretty strong."

Emori adds, "I found a plant with some purple flowers, too. I thought you might find it useful." She rifles through her pockets and hands a small cloth bag to Clarke. When Clarke opens it, a few violet petals drift gently to the floor.

Despite the circumstances, Clarke's eyes are full of wonder as she examines the beautiful flowers. "They smell kind of like poppy. Maybe they have some analgesic properties; we'd have to test them to be sure." She pauses, glancing at the two bodies on the stretchers. "It'll have to wait until I examine the bodies, though. If there's some kind of insect or snake out there that's a threat to us, we need to know everything we can about it."

Bellamy nods grimly in agreement. _So much for catching a break_, he thinks.

* * *

Examining the bodies yields very little useful information. Clarke and Jackson report that the wounds are small, like two pinpricks from sharp fangs, very easy to miss. They conclude that the creature is either a poisonous snake or a kind of lizard, but beyond that, they can't figure out anything else. There are some traces of venom left in the wounds, but not enough to actually test.

They do several tests on the flowers, though, and Clarke's guess that they have analgesic properties turns out to be exactly right. In fact, the flowers turn out to be even more potent than they expected.

Clarke and Jackson distill it into a paste and feed a portion of it to one of their sicker patients. His fever comes down rapidly, but he falls into a deathlike sleep for four days. Clarke insists that it's not a big cause for concern, that they just got the dosage wrong.

That doesn't stop Murphy from muttering caustically, "I suppose I should be grateful I recovered too quickly to not be used as a guinea pig this time. One accidental coma by plant experimentation gone wrong is enough for one lifetime."

"This isn't a coma," Bellamy snaps, stung by the unwanted reminder of the algae and what he'd been forced to do to Octavia.

Clarke looks annoyed, too. "We just have to dilute it," she says. "We're lucky we finally found something we can use, even if the circumstances aren't exactly ideal."

Murphy's expression sobers at that, and for once, he doesn't have a sarcastic quip at the ready. Bellamy can't shake a deep feeling of foreboding that the worst is yet to come.

* * *

It turns out he's right, but he's still blindsided by the way it all unfolds, one tiny mishap leading to a chain of events that opens their eyes to how monumentally they have all messed up where Clarke and Madi are concerned. It starts innocuously, with a routine injury.

Bellamy is startled out of sleep one night when Madi crashes into his tent, panicking. "You have to come now," she says. "Clarke hurt her ankle- _again_\- she was gone for hours, and I never even noticed! She's trying to treat it herself, she says she doesn't need Jackson to look at it, but it's the fifth time. She can't just _ignore_ it. I looked for him, but I don't can't find him anywhere, and Clarke _won't listen to me…"_

Bellamy is on his feet at once. "Hey, hey, it's okay, Madi, come on, take a breath there, okay? Clarke's going to be just fine." He turns to Echo, who is also scrambling up, reaching instinctively for the bow and quiver full of arrows she keeps by her bed. "Go find Jackson. He's probably with Miller. Check near Octavia's tent; they hang out there sometimes."

Echo nods briskly and takes off at a run, and Bellamy hurries after Madi in the opposite direction. The camp is dark and silent, completely still. What was Clarke doing out so late? He wonders. And _why_ did she have to set up her tent so far away from the camp center? It's taking way too long to get there.

When they finally burst through the entrance to Clarke's tent, he finds her sitting on her bed, halfway through wrapping her ankle. Her expression is twisted with pain, sweat beading at her temples, though it quickly morphs into annoyance when she sees them.

"You woke Bellamy?!" she exclaims. "I said I was fine, Madi!"

"You're not fine!" Madi shoots back, "You injured your ankle, _again_. You didn't even tell me you were going on a run. We're supposed to tell each other whenever we go somewhere; that was _your_ rule, remember?"

"You went for a run in the middle of the night?" Bellamy breaks in before Clarke has a chance to reply. He's crouched in front of her, examining her ankle, which looks swollen and painfully bruised. "Clarke, what the hell were you thinking? You could have been badly hurt and nobody would have even known!"

"What he said," Madi huffs from her side. "It's not the first time this week, either. Or even this month."

"_Hey,"_ Clarke retorts sharply. "Both of you stand down, okay? I'm fine. I just tripped." She reaches out and grabs Madi's arm, forcing her to sit down beside her so she can wrap an arm around her shoulders. Madi calms a little, but she's still more upset than Bellamy has ever seen her.

"Clarke, seriously, what were you thinking?" he repeats softly. "Why were you out so late?"

"It wasn't _that_ late when I left," Clarke says defensively, "It was three hours ago, there were even a few people awake when I started. I couldn't fall asleep, so I thought I'd just go on a run to tire myself out. I would have been back before anyone noticed if I hadn't tripped and fallen."

Three hours ago? Did that mean she'd hobbled, perhaps even _crawled_ around the perimeter of the camp, past dozens of tents without even making a sound? "Why didn't you call for help?" he asks, disturbed at the image forming in his mind.

Clarke seems genuinely startled. Clearly, the thought hadn't even occurred to her, which disturbs him even more. "I-" she falters.

She is interrupted by Jackson's arrival. He is closely followed by Echo, who glances at Bellamy, a wordless question in her eyes. He shakes his head and she relaxes, taking a step back until she is standing half outside the tent, unobtrusive but still observing everything. He feels a rush of gratitude for her silent understanding.

"Let me take a look," Jackson says, crouching in front of Clarke. Bellamy obligingly moves out of the way but makes sure not to go far.

Clarke screws her eyes shut and sucks in a pained breath when Jackson begins his examination. Madi shoots her another worried look, and Clarke schools her expression, rubbing Madi's shoulder gently as she tries to answer Jackson's concerned questions.

When Jackson rolls back the cuffs of her trousers, Bellamy's attention is immediately drawn by the ugly scars marring her leg. When had that happened? He doesn't remember seeing them before.

"It's a sprain," Jackson pronounces before he can ask about it, "A bad one, and you probably didn't help by trying to _walk_ on it right after you were injured"- he levels a reproachful look at her- "but you'll probably be fine if you take it easy for a few weeks."

"See?" Clarke tells Madi, "Told you I'd be fine."

"Then why does it keep happening?" Madi demands, turning to Jackson, "This is the fifth time she's sprained that ankle in the last six years. And those were just the serious injuries. She's also twisted it a couple of times. That's not normal, right? That many injuries to the same leg?"

Jackson's brow furrows in concern. "No, it's not," he says. "How did you hurt it the first time?"

For some reason, Madi looks even more distressed at the question. Clarke tightens her protective hold on her shoulders. "It doesn't matter," she says dismissively.

"The hell it doesn't," Madi says harshly. "_I'm _the reason you hurt yourself the first time." She turns to Jackson and explains, "The first time I saw Clarke, it was about two months after the wave hit. I'd been alone in my village, trying to survive, and she just appeared out of nowhere. I thought she was a threat, that wanted me for my blood, for the Flame-" she cuts herself off with a sharp, shaky breath, "so I led her into a hunting trap."

Bellamy winces at the image. He's seen enough Grounder traps to guess exactly how much damage that must have done.

Clarke, on the other hand, looks inexplicably amused. "Don't forget the part where you tried to stab me," she says, teasing. "And then _stole all my stuff_ while I was sleeping off my injuries. You really were the child from hell."

"It's not _funny_, Clarke. You didn't even take a second to rest, you kept using that tree branch as a cane, chasing after me _all over the place-"_

"Hey, come on," Clarke breaks in gently, "What was I supposed to do, lie in bed all day and leave you to fend for yourself? You were six years old!"

"How long did it take for the injury to heal?" Jackson interrupts. "How many weeks before you didn't need the cane anymore?"

Clarke frowns, trying to remember. "About three weeks, I think?"

"It was five," Madi corrects. "And it _never_ healed right." There's a tell-tale sheen to her eyes, and Bellamy stares at her, startled by how upset she is. "You think I didn't notice you massaging it after we'd been walking a long time, or just before a storm hit? It got worse every time you reinjured it, and you _never _took it easy. I never tried hard enough to make you."

Clarke leans back, obviously stunned. It's clear she's never realized how much guilt Madi has been carrying over this. She recovers quickly, though, reaching out with irresistible intent to take Madi's face in her hands.

"Sweetheart," she says with so much tenderness and emotion that Bellamy has to look away, feeling as if he's intruding on something intensely private. "It's just an ankle, okay? Yes, it still hurts me sometimes, and maybe the initial injury was because I was stupid enough to fall into your trap, but the rest of them weren't. You were just a child, all alone in the middle of a damn apocalypse, and you'd just lost everyone you knew. I don't blame you for thinking I was a threat."

Her hands slip down to rest on Madi's shoulders, grasping firmly. "It wasn't your job to take care of me. You're _my_ kid, not the other way around. Besides," she adds with a wry smile, "if it hadn't been the trap, it would have been something else. You _know_ that. There's nothing you could have done to fix it. That's just the way it was down there."

Madi nods, relaxing as if this is actually supposed to be _comforting_, and Bellamy just stares at the two of them in disbelief.

Jackson finishes wrapping Clarke's ankle and levels her with a serious look. "You _have_ to take it easy from now on," he warns. "We can't treat this the way we would a regular sprain. You need complete bed rest for at least two weeks. No getting up except to go the bathroom. And even after that, you'll have to stay off your feet as much as possible. Maybe for a few months, even."

"_What?_ I can't-"

"Chronic ankle instability is not something you can mess around with, Clarke," Jackson interrupts sharply, "and that's where this is headed, on the off-chance that you don't already have it by now. You _have_ to take it easy, or this _will_ get worse. I refuse to have to explain to Abby why her twenty-five-year-old daughter ended up with a permanent limp on my watch."

She glares back at him and snaps, "I'm not going to just sit around in my tent for weeks while people are still getting sick every day. You know I'm needed in the infirmary."

"Then you move closer," Bellamy interjects before the argument can escalate. "We can manage at the infirmary for a couple of weeks while you're on bedrest. Which you are _going_ to take, or so help me, I will have people guarding your tent _day and night_ if that's what it takes, Clarke. After that, you can move into Eligius IV. You'll be able to work without needing to walk back so far every day."

The suggestion isn't just pragmatic, it has the added advantage of moving Clarke closer to the center of camp. Bellamy can't pretend the prospect of being able to keep a better eye on her isn't appealing. Clarke looks like she's just swallowed a lemon, but thankfully, she doesn't try to argue. She's a doctor too, after all, and even she recognizes that it's the only feasible solution.

"Fine," she says, grimacing.

"And no more midnight runs," Madi tells her sternly. "In fact, no more going _anywhere_ without telling me where you are. You need to follow the rules."

Bellamy finds himself fighting back a smile. Clarke's lips quirk up too, and she cuffs Madi's shoulder playfully. "Duly noted, _mom,"_ she teases.

* * *

A sprained ankle barely even registers on the scale of suffering they have all lived through, so it isn't a huge problem, but Clarke wasn't overstating the importance of her role in the infirmary. As the only other person besides Jackson who has any medical training, her presence is sorely missed.

Despite the volunteers the council assigns to help at the infirmary, Jackson seems increasingly harried and worn down as the days pass. Bellamy overhears him telling Miller ruefully that it's the first time in his entire medical career that he's worked so many days in a row without a Griffin by his side.

Clarke handles the enforced bedrest about as well as can be expected. She doesn't have many close friends these days, but those who do know her can easily guess how difficult it is for her to lie in bed all day with only her thoughts to occupy her.

Bellamy, Murphy and Emori all make a conscious effort to take her mind off things. Bellamy comes by as often as he can, spending almost every spare minute by her side, not that he has many of them. Echo isn't pleased about it but she also doesn't complain about how little time Bellamy has been spending with her, and he takes it for the tacit approval it is.

Raven still isn't speaking to Clarke, but she does ask Bellamy how she's doing in a casual, offhand tone that fools no one. He answers her without making a big deal out of it but makes it a point to tell Clarke she asked about her.

Madi cuts her training sessions short so she can spend more time with Clarke, staunchly ignoring the lectures from Niylah and Indra about the importance of sparring practice. She also manages to find Clarke a sketchpad and a few color pencils in Eligius IV, which make Clarke smile more brightly than Bellamy has seen in…well, years, frankly.

Murphy and Emori are usually too busy to stay for long when they visit her, but they bring her books to read from the Eligius IV library. Bellamy, witnessing some of Clarke's interactions with them, is struck by how awkward she is around them. Or perhaps, awkward is the wrong word; it's not like she doesn't know how to talk to them. But she doesn't banter with Murphy the way she used to, and her conversation with them is always very superficial. The more he observes her behavior, the more worried he grows about how alone she seems.

It's a huge relief when Jackson pronounces her ready to go back to work. She still has to use a cane, of course, and Bellamy knows she's still in quite a bit of pain. Jackson grimly confides to Bellamy that he would have liked her to stay off her feet for a few more days, but they both know Clarke would never have agreed to that.

So Bellamy helps her and Madi move into a room near the infirmary in Eligius IV, and Clarke immediately resumes her duties. Madi returns to a regular training schedule and Bellamy finally has a spare minute now that he's no longer spending so much time by her bedside.

Even though things are returning to a state of normalcy, Bellamy still can't bring himself to relax. He knows a sprained ankle, even a serious one, is probably the smallest crisis they have ever faced in the past few years, but the sight of Clarke hobbling around on a cane, her face tight with pain, leaves Bellamy with a low thrum of anxiety that he can't seem to shake.

He waits for the other shoe to drop.

It doesn't take long.

* * *

"We're done with the radios. We should be good to go now, whenever you guys want."

Sometimes, Raven is just a little too good at her job. Bellamy had known she and Shaw were making steady progress with the radios, but he'd never expected them to be done so quickly. They have somehow built ten working radios from scraps of metal in a matter of weeks, which is more than enough for everyone on the mission with two to spare for those staying behind.

They no longer have any reason to postpone this, so they make their plans quickly. Indra is overjoyed at the prospect of finally doing something concrete to help save her daughter, and the others are clearly itching to get moving too.

Clarke, of course, does not take it well when they tell her. "Absolutely not," she snaps, "There's no way in hell Madi's going with you to some snake-infested clearing."

"She has to, Clarke," Niylah explains patiently. "She's the commander. We need the wisdom of the Flame to guide us through this."

"She's still just a child!"

"I'm right here!" Madi says in protest, "Don't I get a say in this?"

"Yes," Raven says at the same moment that Clarke utters an equally decisive, "no!"

Raven glares at Clarke, arms crossed over her chest. "It's _not_ your decision," she tells Clarke. "You're not on the council anymore, remember? The radios are done. We've been having good weather lately. They're going armed with two different types of guns just so they can cover their bases, and they'll have an eye out for those snakes now that they know to expect them. There's no reason to keep delaying this, and Madi _is_ the commander. So _no_, you don't get a say here."

"Very diplomatic, Raven," Murphy snarks in an undertone.

Both women ignore him. "I'm her mother," Clarke says hotly. "Of course I get a say here. Once was enough. I'm not sending my twelve-year-old daughter into this kind of danger again."

"Clarke, come on," Bellamy cuts in, balking at the implied comparison. "This isn't like before. It's just recon. She's not going to war, we're only exploring the terrain."

"You say that like exploring hostile terrain is any less dangerous than going to war," she says. "Believe me, it's not. I have the scars to prove it, and so does Madi. I'm not keen on seeing her add another to the collection."

Bellamy sucks in a breath at the words, feeling suddenly wrong-footed. He never knows what to say when Clarke brings up her experiences on Earth. He's not the only one; Raven, Murphy and Emori all look thrown off kilter. He glances at Echo, whose expression is unreadable. She's been oddly quiet through this confrontation, and Bellamy wonders what's going on with her.

It's Indra who finally speaks up. She stands in a fighting stance as she stares at Clarke with a hardened expression. "She may be your twelve-year-old daughter," she says, "but she's also _Heda_. She's our leader. She has to be willing to step into danger for her people, and you cannot stand in her way. We need the wisdom of the commanders now more than ever."

Clarke looks at her with unexpected understanding and compassion. "Indra, I know you want to save your daughter. I understand your motivations, but can't you see that I'm just trying to do the same for mine?" Her anger is gone now, her voice taking on an edge of desperation and helplessness. "I _know_ I can't stop her. I know she's your commander now, but she can't go without me to protect her. Please, just wait a few weeks until I'm healed enough to go with you."

Jackson is already shaking his head. "Clarke, it's going to be months, not weeks," he says. "You need to rest that ankle properly and you know it."

Clarke looks away, her throat working as she visibly swallows back emotion.

Bellamy clears his throat. "As much as I hate it, we can't wait any longer, Clarke," he says. "People are still falling ill every day, and so far we've been lucky that they've recovered without too many complications, but sooner or later, the fever will hit someone who's too weak or too old to fight it off. Diyoza's baby is going to be born in less than a month, and we can't just leave Abby and the others in cryo definitely. We need meds. We need to find more of those purple flowers so we can test them and figure something out before we lose anyone else."

"Alright," says Clarke tightly, "I'm still coming with you. I know what you're going to say, Jackson, but I've walked more miles in worse pain than this. I'll be fine."

"No, you won't be!" Jackson exclaims in frustration, "That's exactly why you're at risk for chronic ankle instability in the first place!"

Madi has been standing aside all this time, watching Clarke with troubled eyes, but she speaks up now. "Clarke. Come on. You can't go. You _know_ you can't go. You'll just slow us down. If you don't let yourself heal, you could end up with permanent damage."

"I couldn't care less about permanent damage, not if it means-"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence," Raven interrupts harshly, "not where I can hear it. I'm not going either, Clarke. I'll just slow everyone down too. Don't you think I _want_ to protect them? Don't you think it kills me every time I'm left behind?"

The words ring through the room, silencing everyone. "Raven…" Murphy chokes the word out, looking pained and guilty.

She shakes her head at him, contrite but also defiantly unapologetic for reopening this old wound to make her point.

Clarke lets out a ragged, shaky breath. "I _can't_," she says.

"Clarke," says Madi gently. "They need me. Even if I wasn't the commander, you and I are the only two people alive to have survived a desert planet on our own. I have to do this. And you have to let me."

Clarke's face contorts at the words, her head hanging low and her eyes clenching shut. When she looks up, it's with helpless resignation. "Okay," she says in a small voice, "but I'm keeping one of the radios."

"Of course," Bellamy assures her immediately. "That's a given. I know how hard this must be for you, but we'll keep her safe, I promise."

Bellamy cringes as soon as the words are out of his month, entirely too aware of what had happened the last time he'd made this promise to her. Only a slight tensing of Clarke's shoulders betrays her reaction. "Keeping her safe would mean keeping her here," she says without inflection. "And anyway, you're not going."

"_What?_ Who says I'm not-"

"You haven't had the Desert Fever yet," she reminds him. "People who've been sick have immunity, but no one else should go."

"She's right," says Jackson, "but a doctor needs to go with you. I know I haven't been sick, but we don't know what you might run into. So I'll have to go, but no one else who hasn't been sick."

The idea of letting Madi, Echo and the others go off without him is terrifying, but Bellamy can hardly protest when Clarke has agreed to let Madi go. Still, it stings that Clarke doesn't want him there to protect her daughter, as if she simply doesn't trust him or anyone else to do that for her anymore.

"It is decided, then," Indra pronounces with finality. "We leave in two days."

* * *

"You were kind of quiet today," Bellamy remarks to Echo later that night.

Echo, brushing out her long hair carefully, has her back turned to him. "What do you mean?"

Bellamy hesitates, unsure whether he'll offend her by saying this. "I was just expecting you to have a lot more to say. It's no secret you're not a big fan of Clarke's."

Echo goes still at the words. She sets her hairbrush down carefully and turns around to look at him. "I wanted to," she admits. "It was on the tip of my tongue. I was going to tell her that Madi needed to do this and she would just have to suck it up and deal. It's just…"

"Yeah?" he prompts her.

"The entire thing reminded me of what happened on Earth. I was there when Clarke finally gave in and told Madi to help us. She said she was going to stay behind to stop the transport ship from leaving, and Madi...she freaked out. She said she needed Clarke, said she couldn't do this without her. The only other time I've seen her that scared is the night Clarke hurt her ankle. Clarke actually ended up having to talk her into going with me, even though I could see it was the last thing she wanted."

The thought of Clarke _convincing _Madi to go to war after everything she'd done to prevent it makes Bellamy's heart hurt. He can't think of anything to say in response.

"I guess I just…didn't want to play that role again, you know?" Echo finishes. "I didn't want to be the one to talk her into danger again- not that this is anywhere near as risky as what we asked of her then. It just- it didn't feel right."

Bellamy lets out a slow breath. Echo has put into words the same misgivings he's been struggling with all day.

"I know what you mean," he says.

* * *

The day of departure dawns bright and clear. The weather is almost mild compared to what they've become used to, especially this early in the morning with only one of the suns up. A warm breeze blows, a welcome change from the still, dry heat they've had to endure over the past few weeks. It's the perfect weather for an exploratory mission.

Bellamy has prepared himself to say goodbye to Echo and the others today, deciding to walk with the others to the edge of the camp, and Raven joins him. He's dismayed to find that Clarke has apparently decided to do the same. She's standing at the entrance of the camp, blocking their path. He takes in the precarious way she's standing and how heavily she's leaning on her cane and feels a surge of protective anger. Had she just _walked_ all the way out here on her injured ankle?

"Clarke, what the hell are you doing here?" Madi rushes forward and grabs Clarke's arm, winding it around her own shoulder so Clarke can lean on her. "You're supposed to be resting!"

Jackson is staring at her, aghast. "This is literally the opposite of what I told you to do, Clarke!" he exclaims.

Clarke ignores him. "You can't go out there today," she says. "You'll have to wait at least a day."

Murphy, who is even grumpier than usual this early in the morning, rolls his eyes impatiently. "Clarke, come on. Seriously? How many times are we gonna do this?"

"There's going to be a sandstorm!" Clarke insists. "A bad one. You'll have to delay it to tomorrow."

Bellamy stares at her in confusion. "Clarke, have you seen the sky today?" he asks, gesturing towards the horizon. "This is the best weather we've had in weeks!"

"We checked the readings on Eligius IV," Raven adds, "There's been no indication of a sandstorm. You're grasping at straws."

"I'm not grasping at anything," Clarke shoots back, though her hold around Madi's shoulders tightens, belying her claim. Madi's expression is carefully blank. Bellamy wonders why she hasn't spoken up, but he's started to notice that she often falls silent when Clarke gets into arguments with the rest of the council. He realizes it must be hard for her to watch them at odds with each other so often.

"You know as well as I do the storms sometimes come without warning," Clarke tells Raven. "It's happened twice since we got here. Eligius IV's forecasting system is good, but it wasn't built for a planet with two suns and it isn't foolproof."

"And _you_ are?" Echo counters. "How could you possibly know there's going to be a sandstorm?"

Clarke stiffens, bracing herself. It's as if she already knows her explanation won't be well received, and she's right. "I just know, okay? I can feel it in my body when the weather changes. My shoulder aches from when I dislocated it three years ago. My ankle hurts like I injured it all over again. It's how I always know when a storm's coming. That last year on Earth, I got really good at predicting them. I was almost never wrong. I know it sounds crazy, but it's the truth."

It does sound crazy, Bellamy thinks. Crazy and _desperate_.

"Your ankle hurts?" Raven asks incredulously, "_That's_ your explanation? Did you forget the part where you twisted it a few weeks ago, or am I hallucinating?"

"It feels different," Clarke insists, "I know how it sounds, I know it's hard to believe, and it's definitely impossible for me to explain, but it's not the same kind of pain."

"If we have to wait until your ankle stops hurting, we'll be waiting for weeks," Indra tells her harshly, "but that's exactly what you want, isn't it? You want to force us to delay the mission so you can be there to protect her-"

"Indra," Clarke interrupts her seriously, "that's _not_ what's happening, here. I get where you're coming from, okay? I get how badly you want to find a way to heal your daughter. I would probably be doing the exact same thing if Madi was the one injured and stuck in cryo, but you're not seeing this clearly. As much as I want to, I'm not trying to put this off until my ankle heals. I want my mother healed too. I'm just asking you to delay it by a day, to wait until after this storm hits. That's all."

"Clarke," Emori says carefully, "You don't think that _you're_ the one who's not seeing this clearly? Even if you _could_ predict the weather on Earth- and I knew a few Wastelanders back in the day who claimed the ability to do that, so I don't know, maybe you actually can- this is a completely different planet with two suns. You've been here as long as we have. The weather might be similar to what it was like after Praimfaya, but still. How do you know you can do the same thing here? Your ankle is injured right now. Maybe you just slept wrong last night and that's why your shoulder is hurting. Have you considered that you might be wrong, here?"

"Of course I have," Clarke replies. "Why do you think I didn't say anything until now? I _knew_ what it would sound like. I knew what you would all think and say, and I wondered if I was misreading the signs. But after Madi left I realized how stupid it would be to not trust my own body after everything it's been through these past few years. Yeah, my ankle hurts, but like I said, this feels shoulder hasn't twinged like this since before the storm two weeks ago. I was right then and I'm right now."

"So you weren't completely sure," Echo frowns, "You said you wondered if you were misreading the signs. I'm sorry, Clarke. I know you aren't lying, but this sounds like wish fulfillment to me. I know how badly you want Madi out of danger. You could feel just as sure there'll be another disaster tomorrow. I don't think that's a good enough reason to delay this." She walks forward and looks Clarke squarely in the eye. "I'll be with Madi every step of the way. I promise."

Clarke flinches as if the words carry an awful weight, reminding her of something terrible. "Echo-" she says weakly.

Madi gives her a quick squeeze to her arm. "We have to go," she says, softly. "You know we do."

She pulls away from Clarke, unwrapping her arm from her shoulders.

"You don't feel it?" Clarke asks her, searching her face. "You could usually sense it, too. Is it just me?"

"I don't feel anything," says Madi. "It's a clear day."

Clarke's shoulders drop in defeat, and for a second, she doesn't look at any of them. Then she straightens up and plasters a smile on her face. "Keep the radio on you at all times," she tells Madi. "Keep your eyes open and don't take any unnecessary risks." She lets her cane drop to the floor and wraps both arms around Madi, hugging her hard. "I love you. Come back to me."

"I will," Madi promises, returning the hug. "I love you, too."

They hold onto each other for a long moment, only separating reluctantly when Raven and Bellamy have said their own goodbyes. Then Clarke steps back and watches as the group sets out, covering their heads with pieces of cloth to protect themselves from the heat of the suns.

Bellamy waits until they have disappeared into the horizon before he bends to retrieve Clarke's cane from the ground. "Come on, Clarke. Time to head back."

Clarke turns towards him slowly. Bellamy is staggered by the raw terror in her eyes. Her hands shake as she takes the cane from him.

"_Clarke, hey_," he says. "Hey, it's going to be okay, they're going to be _fine-_"

But Clarke shakes her head fiercely and pulls away. Clutching the radio strapped at her waist like its a lifeline, she begins the long trek back to the infirmary with slow, shuffling steps.

* * *

"Clarke, we've been looking everywhere for you!"

Miller's voice is sharp and urgent as he rushes towards them, making Bellamy stiffen in alarm. "What happened?"

"Diyoza's water broke. I went for a run this morning after Jackson left and I found her trying to get to the infirmary. I'm pretty sure she's in labor."

"_What? _She's not supposed to be due for another three weeks!" Raven exclaims while Clarke curses under her breath and scrambles to move more quickly, grimacing in pain as her ankle protests.

Bellamy hurries forward and grabs her free arm, draping it over his shoulders. She freezes, her entire body tensing at the contact. He forces himself to ignore the sting of her reaction and says as matter-of-factly as he can, "We'll get there faster if I help."

She nods and relaxes, leaning on him heavily as they hobble back to the infirmary as fast as they can go.

When they get there, Diyoza is already lying in bed, her face screwed up in pain as a contraction hits her. "Thank fucking god," she says when she sees Clarke. "I was afraid you'd taken off after them."

"Nope, still here." Clarke's gaze sweeps over the crowd of people assembled there and adds, "Come on, let's get you some privacy."

The next few hours pass by in anxious silence as they wait outside her room, punctuated only by Diyoza's cries and occasionally, the murmured reassurances of Clarke and the two other volunteers who have stepped in to assist her.

Raven, Bellamy, Miller and half a dozen of Diyoza's most trusted men- the ones who refused to be chased away by Clarke's commands to clear out of there- wait with bated breath outside her room. Finally, when the second sun is high in the sky and the heat outside is getting to be almost unbearable, the plaintive wails of a crying infant rent the air.

They all sag with relief.

Clarke emerges from the room a few minutes later. She looks completely wiped out, her face beaded with sweat and her movements slower and even more painful than before, but she manages a tired smile. "She's okay. Her and the baby both."

Relieved laughter follows her announcement. Bellamy slumps in his chair, closing his eyes in profound gratitude that they didn't lose the first life born on this planet. The symbolic irony of that would have been really hard to recover from.

"She's a little smaller and weaker than I would have liked," Clarke continues, collapsing into a chair, "and her breathing is a little labored. If we were set up for it, I would have wanted to put her in intensive care for a couple of nights to be safe, but it will probably pass. She just needs to be closely monitored for a couple of days."

"You should get some rest while you can, though," Bellamy tells her, concerned by how drained she looks. "You've been on your feet for way too long today. We'll take it in turns to watch out for Diyoza."

"Yeah, that sounds amazing. I just need to check on Madi and the others first-"

She is interrupted by the sound of static from the radio strapped to Bellamy's waist, and then Echo's voice, sounding small and afraid. "Bellamy, do you read me? Come in. We have a situation."

Clarke's face goes deathly pale. Bellamy's heart is pounding as he grabs the radio and pushes the talk button. "What happened? Is everyone okay?"

"We're fine. We're about an hour out from the outcropping of trees, I think I can even see them in the distance, but it's just-" She hesitates. "I think there's a storm coming. There are some dark clouds on the horizon."

Clarke leans forward, bracing her hands on her knees. "I knew it," she says. "I fucking knew it."

Bellamy feels the force of the whispered words like they are a terrible accusation screamed into his face. He meets Raven's eyes and sees the same awful realization reflected in hers.

"Can you make it to the outcropping in time?" he asks urgently, stumbling over the words.

Echo's voice is grim when she answers. "We can try."

* * *

Clarke doesn't waste any time on recriminations. She talks quickly and urgently into the radio, giving the team a rapid fire stream of instructions.

"Keep your faces covered. Especially you, Jackson, even though there's probably nothing we can do to prevent you from getting sick now. We'll worry about that later. You'll have to get to the trees before you put your tents up. Run as fast as you can and don't stinge on water. It'll only slow you down if you're tired or thirsty. If the winds are as strong as the readings are saying, you won't survive without cover. When you get there, look for rocks to secure your tents..."

Raven and Bellamy leave her to handle it, taking off at a run through the camp to warn the rest of their people. They can see traces of the storm now, hints of creeping darkness marring the edges of the bright blue sky.

They know from painful experience that not everyone has tents strong enough to survive a bad storm. It's one of the reasons they'd needed wood so badly, so they could build more secure structures.

None of that matters now as they evacuate people on the edges of the camp and corral them into Eligius IV. Niylah organizes a team to distribute water and other supplies to those staying in tents, enough to last everyone a couple of days. They've never had a sandstorm which lasted that long, but it's better to be safe than sorry. (If only they'd remembered that this morning when Clarke hard warned them this was coming).

By the time they head back to the infirmary the storm is a lot closer on the horizon, the black clouds completely obscuring one of the two suns. The wind is picking up, sand burning in their eyes as they hurry back to Eligius IV.

The waiting room is now completely emptied of everyone except Clarke and Miller, both of whom are sitting with their eyes fixed on Clarke's radio.

"Did they make it?" Raven barks out the question, her shoulders tense.

"No, they're still twenty minutes out," Miller says.

"What about Diyoza?" Bellamy asks. "Is someone with her?"

"She's fine. We sent one of her men to sit with her."

Bellamy frowns. Clarke still hasn't said a word to any of them. "Hey, you okay?"

He realizes what a stupid question it is the moment the words leave his mouth. Of course she isn't okay. "I'm going to go check on the baby," she says in a clipped voice.

She grabs her radio off the table and hobbles into Diyoza's room, her cane forgotten against a wall. Bellamy lets out a tired breath and reaches for his radio, setting it down on the table.

Clarke rejoins them ten minutes later, collapsing back on her chair. Her hands clutch her own radio in a tight, white-knuckled grip.

They wait for news in a tense, volatile silence. After what seems like an eternity, Echo's voice emerges from Bellamy's radio, sounding weary but triumphant. "We made it. Barely, but we found the clearing and managed to get a few tents up before the storm hit us."

"Thank god," Raven says fervently.

Miller sags as the tension leaves his body, his eyes closing in relief, and Bellamy exhales a long, shaky breath. "How bad is the storm?" he asks Echo.

"Bad. I can't believe how strong the winds are. One second the sky was clear, and the next there was this black shroud of dust and sand descending on us."

Bellamy grimaces at the choice of words. This had been way, _way_ too close.

"Well, you made it," says Raven. "You're safe now; that's all that matters."

They exchange a few more words before clicking the radio off.

Bellamy notices that Clarke is still slumped back in her chair, her eyes closed. She only allows herself a few seconds before her eyes fly open and she snatches up her own radio. "Madi? You really okay?"

"We're really okay," comes the response.

"The tents are completely secure? You're sure?"

"Yeah. We did what you said and weighed down the edges with rocks. We only managed to get three of them up, though, so I'm squeezed in here with Murphy, Emori, Jackson and Echo." Madi hesitates for a split second before she adds in a rush, "Clarke, I'm really sorry I didn't listen to you. I should have known better. I _did_ know better. I just-"

"It doesn't matter," Clarke interrupts quickly, throwing a quick glance at the other occupants of the room. "We can talk about it later. All you have to do now is- "

But Clarke never finishes her sentence, because she's cut off by a piercing cry of pain from Madi, sudden and shocking. Bellamy hears the others panicking in the background and Emori start to yell out Madi's name, and then the sound from the radio cuts off abruptly.

Clarke leaps to her feet in alarm, completing forgetting her injury. Her knees give way and she falls to the floor with a pained cry, but she barely seems to register that, her voice rising into near hysteria as she calls frantically into the radio, "Madi? What the hell just happened? Someone come in, answer me! _Madi?"_

Bellamy is yelling into his own radio, his heart racing as he imagines everyone's worst nightmare; the tent flying off in a gust of wind and sweeping all their loved ones into oblivion. "Echo, _Echo_, do you hear me? Murphy? Jackson? Come in, please respond."

No one does, though, and Bellamy barely holds onto his sanity by the tips of his fingers. Clarke is clearly terrified out of her mind, her breathing growing shallow and choppy as she gasps out Madi's name. She's nearing the point of hyperventilation when Murphy's voice finally crackles through on the radio. "Guys, hey, we're sorry. I'm here."

"What the fuck is going on, Murphy? Is Madi okay? And why the hell are you talking to me on her radio? Where is she?" There's an unmistakable note of hysteria in Clarke's voice.

"You have to calm down, okay?" Murphy tells her. "We're taking care of Madi, I promise."

"Taking _care_ of her? What-?"

"There was a snake hiding beyond one of the rocks. It jumped out and bit her arm."

Icy dread washes over Bellamy. He stares at Raven, remembering the cold, still faces of the two dead Grounders with sickening clarity.

"Oh my god_,"_ says Clarke in a strangled voice. "_Madi-"_

"No, no, _do not _freak out on me right now," Murphy tells her sharply. "She's right on the other side of this tent and she can probably hear you. Jackson tied a tourniquet around her arm, but he says those are only so effective when it comes to snakebites. We don't know how fast the venom is going to spread, so we _need_ to keep her heart rate down, and you can't help her do that if you start freaking out. You need to calm the fuck down. Right now. Okay?"

"Y-yeah," Clarke manages, "Okay."

"I'm going to give her the radio now. Talk to her, okay?"

There's a rustling on the other end and an inaudible murmur from someone, probably Jackson.

Then Madi's voice, small and scared.

"Clarke?"

Clarke opens her mouth to respond, but her breath catches in her throat. She looks frozen in panic, and for a split second, Bellamy is afraid she won't be able to keep herself together. Then, she closes her eyes and wrestles with herself, trying to quiet her shallow breathing. Her chest still rises and falls rapidly, but she manages to muffle the sounds of her gasps.

"Clarke, you there?" Madi repeats the question.

"Hi _natblida_, I'm here. How're you feeling? Talk to me."

Clarke's voice is warm and loving, a heartbreaking contrast to the tension and worry on her face. It's the most impressive thing Bellamy has ever seen her do. He fights the urge to reach out and grasp her hand in a show of silent support, not wanting to break her focus when it's clearly taking everything she has to be talking to Madi in a normal tone.

"My arm hurts," Madi responds shakily. Unlike Clarke, she can't quite conceal her fear and pain; Bellamy can tell that she's crying. "I didn't even see it coming. It just jumped right out at me."

"It's okay, sweetheart," Clarke reassures her. "It's not your fault. No one could have seen it."

Bellamy leans forward as a sudden, frightening thought occurs to him. "Do you guys know where the snake is now?" he asks urgently. "If it's still a threat-"

"No." It's Echo who replies, her voice sounding surprisingly clear. She must be sitting right by Madi's head. "I shot it before it could kill anyone else. Jackson is studying its fangs right now, trying to figure out what kind of poison they carry."

"What about-?"

"We checked. There aren't any others, at least not inside our tents."

Madi makes another choked sound of distress. Her ragged breathing is clearly audible through the radio. Clarke blanches, her fingernails digging hard into the palm of her hand, but her voice is still even when she asks, "Madi? Talk to me. How bad?"

"Pretty bad." Madi's voice is shaky, disturbingly childlike.

"Number?"

"Like an eight? I can feel it above the tourniquet now."

"Describe it for me," Clarke commands. "Sharp, stabbing, burning?"

There's a terrible sense of familiarity to their conversation, almost like they're following a previously established protocol. Bellamy's breath stutters as he imagines Clarke teaching Madi _this_ alongside lessons in English and sparring.

"Stabbing," Madi answers, "Feels like that time I broke my arm, but it's sharper somehow? And I think it's getting worse."

She sounds so _scared_. Bellamy feels his throat tightening in response. Clarke's eyes are wide and panicked. "Jackson, you there?" she calls out. "Can we talk for a second?"

There's some shuffling and a murmured, "Give them a minute, _Heda_," from Echo.

"I'm here, Clarke." Jackson's voice is low, clearly trying not to be overheard.

"How bad is it? Give it to me straight."

"It's spreading fast. I examined the fangs but I couldn't figure out anything that would help."

"What meds do you have with you?" The fear is back in her voice now, clearly audible to all of them.

"Nothing that would help with this," Jackson says bleakly, "Definitely nothing that could pass for an antivenom."

"What about the flowers? That paste we made? Maybe if we used it locally-"

"We already used all of it, Clarke," Jackson interrupted. "You know that." A moment's hesitation. "Antivenom is pretty much the only treatment for a snake this poisonous. I hate to say this, but maybe you need to begin preparing yourself-"

"_No_, no way," Clarke interrupts, furious, "Don't you dare give me the damn speech, Jackson. I am not fucking preparing myself for this, I can't. You have to find a way to save her. _Please_."

"I can go out and get the flowers," Echo's voice breaks into the conversation. "I think I remember where they were from last time. It will only take a few minutes-"

"_No,"_ Bellamy, Jackson and Clarke all say at the same time. As the others stare at Clarke in surprise at her immediate refusal, she adds, "There's just no point. You won't be able to see a thing out there, and the wind is too strong. You'll be blown away in seconds for something that probably won't even work."

"Well, we'll figure something else out, then," Echo tells her. "Or Jackson will. We're not giving up on her, Clarke. I promise."

Clarke nods. Bellamy's heart lurches at the look on her face. "Give Madi the radio back," is all she says.

"Yeah, you just keep her talking and awake," Echo answers. "We'll figure out how to save her."

* * *

"Keep her talking" turns into a morbid and surprisingly technical conversation about the various kinds of hunting traps Clarke and Madi had set around Eden. The two of them debate how many traps from Earth they could replicate around the camp, which ones would protect them from snakes and even debate which traps are too dangerous and deadly to be worth the risk of people accidentally stumbling into them. Bellamy can't help but think as he listens to their disturbingly clinical analysis of the three kinds of bear traps that it's a very good thing they're all on the same side now.

With every passing minute, however, Madi's breathing grows more labored. Her responses are getting shorter and she's taking longer and longer to respond to Clarke. Sometimes, she moans out loud in pain and Clarke has to speak louder and repeat her questions to get her to focus again. Clarke's rising anxiety and helplessness is obvious, even as she tries valiantly to keep the conversation light.

It comes as a surprise when Madi suddenly interrupts a question about underwater traps mid-sentence with a rushed and guilt-stricken apology that seems to come out of nowhere. "Clarke, I'm sorry."

"For what?"

Madi continues in a faltering voice, "I ignored your warnings about the sandstorms even though I knew better, and now we're paying the price."

"Madi, I told you, that's not your fault." Clarke's face contorts with emotion even as she keeps her tone warm and reassuring. "If anything, it's on me for letting you go when I knew better. I should have fought harder for you to stay."

"You shouldn't have had to," Madi says. "I should have backed you up. I know you're usually right about these things. And... I also lied to you. When you asked me if I felt the storm coming, I said I couldn't feel anything, but that wasn't true. I could feel it, but I convinced myself I was imagining it, that the forecast from Eligius IV had to be right. I guess I just…I didn't want to look weak, you know? I'm supposed to be the commander, and I didn't want anyone to think I was afraid."

In the silence that follows her admission, Bellamy isn't sure what makes him feel worse: the realization that Madi had felt so compelled to put up a façade of strength for them that she'd ignored her own instincts and lied to her mother about it, or the fact that Clarke herself doesn't look surprised in the least.

"I get that," she tells Madi, weighed down by a deep, knowing sorrow. "I know what that's like. It's a mistake I've made myself a few times." She glances at Bellamy and adds, "It's a mistake we've all made, me and Bellamy and Octavia, Kane and my mother and everyone on the council. Lexa too, and every single commander in your head, even if they choose not to show you that. It comes from being the person everybody's depending on, of not wanting to let anyone down. It's why I never wanted that burden for you. But you _are_ the commander now, Madi. Regardless of my feelings, it's my job to prepare you for moments like this, and I didn't. It's on me that I didn't push you to admit the truth." Clarke swallows hard and continues, "We said we were going to do better this time. I won't let you make the same mistakes I did. Just get back to me in one piece, _natblida_, and I swear I'll prepare you better. I will."

"_We_ will," Bellamy corrects her firmly. He knows he can't just sit by and watch Clarke take the blame for this, not when _they're_ the ones who forgot that having the Flame doesn't make Madi immune to making mistakes.

Raven nods firmly. "That's right," she says.

Clarke looks openly shocked at the show of support, and her surprise, while not undeserved, stings more than a little.

"Okay." Madi's answer is breathy and wavering as if she's used up all her strength with her impromptu confession.

"How are you doing, sweetheart?" Clarke asks, the worry back on her face in full force.

"I, um. I can barely feel my arm anymore but my entire body hurts. And my vision's going kind of blurry. I can't really…Emori, that's you sitting next to me, right?"

There's a shocked intake of breath on the other end. "No, it's me, kid," Echo tells her. "Hold on to my hand, okay? I'm right here."

"Sorry, I…" Madi seems embarrassed at her own confusion, adding defensively, "it's the braids, you know? Or maybe the light? You looked kind of like Emori for a second there."

The dread Bellamy feels washing over him is almost as acute as the stark terror on Clarke's face. "Of course, sweetheart," she says, unable to keep her voice from catching. She takes a deep, steadying breath, trying desperately to hold herself together. "Now, what were you saying before, about the underwater fishing traps?"

"Don't remember." The words come out slurred. Madi is fading fast.

Clarke's free hand is clenched so tightly she'll probably have crescent-shaped bruises on the palms of her hands tomorrow. Her breathing is starting to speed up again, too, but she keeps it quiet, her chest rising and falling as she breathes through her mouth. "Well I do," she says lightly. "You were saying it's not worth the time it would take to build them, but I have to disagree…"

Bellamy can't take this anymore. He jerks to his feet and strides away. "Jackson, come in," he barks into his own radio. "Tell me you have something, here. We're running out of time."

* * *

"I'm not sure if this will work." Jackson's voice is tense and unsure. "As far as I know, no one has used this in centuries. I wouldn't even have suggested it if we had any other options."

"Just spit it out, Jackson," Clarke snaps. She's huddled over Bellamy's radio, still sitting on the floor. He hovers next to her, one arm extended towards her in silent support. Clarke barely seems to notice. Her eyes are fixed on Raven as she talks to Madi a short distance away- she's taken over the task of keeping Madi awake so Jackson can talk to Clarke.

"During my residency on the Ark, I remember reading something in one of our medical history textbooks. It was for our Earth Medicine class. There was a short case study from the late 20th century. I don't remember all the details, but a doctor working in the Amazon rainforest accidentally stumbled upon a treatment for snakebites. It was only supposed to be used in extreme circumstances if no other medical assistance was available."

Miller's expression is concerned as he listens to Jackson's uncharacteristically rambling explanation. "Hey," he tells him gently. "Come on, babe. Focus. What was the treatment?"

Jackson sucks in a breath, clearly audible on the radio. "It was uh…electroshock therapy. Three or four high voltage shocks to be applied to the site of the snakebite."

There's a second of dead silence.

"You're not serious," Bellamy says incredulously. "How would that even _work_?"

"I don't remember how it worked or why. I don't think they really knew, either."

"A shock could kill her in the condition she's in."

"So will doing nothing."

Clarke flinches violently at that. Bellamy gives in to the urge to reach out and squeeze her shoulder. She leans back into the touch instinctively, her eyes squeezing shut. "What would you even find to shock her with, in the middle of nowhere?" she asks. "You don't exactly have any-" She breaks off suddenly as realization strikes, all color draining from her face.

Bellamy gets it a second later. "The _stun guns? _Are you _fucking_…you want to shoot her with the _stun guns?_"

"Of course I don't _want_ to," Jackson snaps back sharply, anxious and on edge. "But it's the only thing I can think of which even has a chance of working. Three shocks should be enough."

"How would we know if it works?"

"If it works," Jackson replies. "It's supposed to result in a full recovery within the hour. If it doesn't work, then...I'm sorry, Clarke, there's no easy way to say this, but with the way this is progressing, she won't have much longer than a few hours either way."

Clarke blanches white. She leans forward and braces her hands on the floor, her breaths coming in shallow pants as her fear overcomes her. "I can't lose her," she gasps out. "I won't survive it."

"Hey, hey," Bellamy shifts around so that he's directly in front of her, reaching out to grasp her shoulders. "Come on, Clarke. You have to breathe. You won't lose her, okay? This will work; it has to. You have to breathe."

She doesn't respond, sucking in deep, ragged gasps of air. Bellamy exchanges a wild-eyed, helpless look with Raven who is watching with alarm from across the room. He can't remember ever seeing Clarke this out of control, and it scares the shit out of him.

"Come on, Clarke." It's Echo's voice this time, harsh and commanding. "We don't have time for you to fall apart, not right now. You _have_ to pull it together. Do you hear me? Madi needs you. She can't do this without you."

That gets through to her. Her throat works and she takes in a few more gasping breaths, forcing herself to calm down. When she finally opens her eyes, it's with a little more clarity and awareness than before. "Yeah, I hear you," she says.

"Clarke, I'm sorry, but I need your consent," Jackson tells her. "She's a minor. She's your child. I can't do a procedure like this if you don't tell me it's okay."

For a moment, Bellamy hates Jackson for following the rules in a moment like this, for putting this decision on Clarke's shoulders. At the same time, he understands _why_, and he's acutely ashamed to realize that by insisting on this, Jackson is really the first person to actually acknowledge how young Madi is. She really is a child- _Clarke's child_\- and the decision should be hers.

Clarke draws in another shuddering breath. "I need to talk to her first," she says. "Explain it before we…" Her voice trails off and she exhales shakily. "I need to talk to her," she repeats.

* * *

"Do you understand, _natblida_?" Clarke's voice is gentle but tinged with urgency. "Do you get why we need to do this?"

"I get it," Madi replies. Her breathing is very labored but she sounds lucid. "I just…I need a second, here."

Bellamy's heart sinks. Seconds later, Jackson says aloud exactly what he's thinking. "We _don't have time._ Clarke, please. You have to say yes-"

"_No." _Madi's voice is hard and cold, shocking them all.

"Madi, it's the only-"

"No," she interrupts with even more force, "This isn't Clarke's decision. You don't need her to sign off on this. It's my decision, okay? I'm not a child; I'm _Heda_. I'm the commander. I've led an army into war, and I won. So I'm saying yes, okay? This is not her decision, it's mine."

"_Madi,"_ Clarke says brokenly.

"No, Clarke. You already had to electrocute me once to protect me. You are not making this decision again. This one is mine."

Clarke recoils, obviously horrified and guilt-stricken at this reminder. She's not the only one. Raven looks shaken and Bellamy is reeling, because holy shit, when the _fuck_ did that even-

"I should never have used the shock collar on you," Clarke says with difficulty.

"You wanted to keep me alive," Madi replies. "We've both been willing to do worse to keep from losing each other." She pauses, then says with a sudden gravity. "Clarke, I need you to promise me something. If I don't recover from this, if I die..."

"No, we are not going there. You're not going to die. You _will_ recover from this, Madi, you have to."

"Clarke, please let me finish," says Madi firmly. "I need to say this. I know...I know we had a plan back on Earth. We needed it then, but it's not just us anymore. We have to let it go. That gun was destroyed on Eden. Promise me it'll stay there."

Clarke looks completely devastated. "_Madi,_ I can't," she says in a strangled voice. For the first time since this entire crisis began, tears fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks. "_I can't," _she repeats desperately.

"You have to," Madi tells her.

"You're _all I have_-"

"No, I'm not!" Madi's voice is urgent and loud. Her breaths are coming faster too, now, and Bellamy can hear Jackson talking urgently in the background, trying to calm her down, but she ignores him completely. "We're not alone on a deserted planet anymore, Clarke. Things are different now. You have Bellamy, you have everyone else. Promise me you won't do it."

Clarke opens her mouth as if to argue, but the words die on her lips as Madi takes another shuddering gasp. "Fine, I promise," she says quickly, "Please just-"

"You're lying." The frantic edge to Madi's voice is even more pronounced now. Her words pour from her lips in an anxious torrent, barely distinguishable from each other. "Bellamy, are you there? You have to promise me. If I die, you have to watch out for her, you have to be there for her, you can't leave her alone. She needs to know she has people, she needs to-" Her words trail off into harsh coughing.

_Oh, God,_ Bellamy thinks numbly, _Madi can't mean…_

But he can think of no other explanation for what Madi's asking of him. The realization of what this plan with the gun has to be steals his voice and breath. All he can do is sit there frozen in horror, listening to her pleading with them to keep Clarke from _killing herself._

"Raven, Murphy, Echo, Emori, please- all of you- you have to stop being mad at her, you have to start talking to her more, make sure she doesn't-" Madi's voice breaks.

Over the roaring in his ears, Bellamy dimly registers Jackson telling Madi to breathe. His eyes are fixed on Clarke. Clarke, who for once isn't even trying to calm Madi, who is visibly fighting to keep from breaking down herself, her head bowed low and her breaths coming in short, shallow gasps.

And Bellamy finally understands with an awful, damning clarity exactly how badly he's fucked up. Clarke and Madi had no one but each other for six years, waited endlessly for Bellamy and their friends to come and save them, only to have Bellamy thrust Madi straight into danger when they finally did.

After everything she's been through, the fact that Clarke had been willing to trust _anyone_ with Madi is a miracle in itself, and he'd squandered that trust without even realizing what he was throwing away.

No wonder she'd left him behind at Polis.

No wonder she always has her walls up, no matter how friendly and warm they've been with each other in recent weeks.

He's not sure what he could have done differently to end the war with Octavia- he had acted out of desperation and had thought he had no other options- but he does know now that he should have tried harder to find an alternative, because anything would have been better than this.

"Please, Bellamy," Madi is pleading, distraught. "Please- you have to promise me-"

It's the fact that she's actually _begging_ him which finally jolts Bellamy out of the daze he's in. "Of course, Madi," he says. "I promise I'll be there for her, that she won't be alone. I promise _neither_ of you will be."

"Not ever again," Raven vows shakily.

Clarke actually raises her head at that, her face painted with such stark disbelief that Bellamy winces. It's not easy to see how shocked Clarke is at such a small show of concern.

"We cockroaches need to stick together." Murphy's voice is hoarse but sincere.

Clarke swallows hard, but before she can respond, Madi lets out a sharp, piercing cry. "_Ow-_ my _arm_-!"

"_Madi?"_ Clarke is frantic again, her own anguish immediately forgotten in the face of her daughter's distress. "What happened; are you alri-?"

"No, she's not alright," Jackson cuts her off sharply, "and she won't be if we wait anymore. Echo, hand me the stun gun_,_ _now_. Murphy, Emori, be ready to hold her down if she struggles. Madi, Clarke, brace yourselves. We're doing this right now."

Clarke has frozen again, dread and terror written across her features. There's a rustling sound on the other end and then they hear Echo's voice, serious and determined.

"Hold on to my hand, Madi. I'm right here with you, every step of the way. You can squeeze as hard as you need to, scream and cry if that's what you need, but you have to stay with us, okay? You have to try, for us and for Clarke."

On instinct, Bellamy reaches out to grab Clarke's hand too. She curls her fingers around his in a desperate, bruising grip. "_Natlbida_," she says, "I love you so much."

"I love you too," Madi chokes out a reply.

"On my count." Bellamy can almost hear the hum of electricity, can picture Jackson's finger tightening on the trigger of the gun as he holds it to the site of the snakebite. He feels Clarke's hand trembling in his, and he tightens his hold on her. "One, two…three."

There are many images and conversations from the day's events that will haunt Bellamy's nightmares for the rest of his life, but the worst one will always be the sight of Clarke's face when she hears Madi scream.

* * *

There's not one sound on either end of the radio save the roar of the storm outside and the soft cadence of Madi's labored breathing as her face presses against the radio. Clarke is blank-faced and still, her eyes completely dry, her hand still locked onto Bellamy's.

The minutes tick by as they wait, quiet and tense, to see if the treatment worked.

And then thirty minutes later, Jackson's voice. "I don't believe it."

"What?"

"Her vitals are improving," Jackson says, incredulous and hopeful. "The wound looks better and she's breathing a little easier."

"Does that mean it worked?"

"Yeah," Jackson says wonderingly. "I've never seen anyone improve so quickly from an injury this serious, but I think...I think she's going to make a complete recovery."

Bellamy slumps with released tension as Echo and the others let out exclamations of joy and relief. Raven releases a shuddering exhalation of pent up air and Miller smiles and leans over to talk to Jackson, congratulating him for saving Madi.

"Clarke, did you hear that?" Raven's voice is light, joyful. "She's going to be fine! She'll be back here in no time, just as soon as the storm passes."

Clarke says nothing in reply. With slow, careful movements, she sets the radio down, takes her thumb off the talk button, and then leans forward and vomits onto the floor.

"_Clarke_!" Bellamy exclaims in shock. "Hey, talk to me. What...?"

But she's sobbing too hard to answer him, her cries rising into keening, plaintive wails, unrelenting and without end.

* * *

The following morning dawns bright and clear like the day before. One sun is climbing gently into the sky as four figures wait at the edge of a makeshift camp that interrupts a vast, barren landscape, their eyes fixed on the shimmering horizon.

Then, movement in the distance.

A tiny dot appears, growing larger and larger until it separates into a dozen distinct figures. Two of them carry a stretcher between them.

A woman with sun-blonde, pink-streaked hair and tired, bloodshot eyes breaks away from the waiting group. She hobbles forward as fast as she can, ignoring the alarmed warnings from her companions to slow down and take it easy, her entire being focused on one goal.

When she finally reaches the stretcher, she stops for a minute, staring down at the child who smiles tiredly up at her. She leans forward to press a kiss to her forehead and then drops to her knees, her cane forgotten in the dirt.

One hand wraps securely around a small, brown wrist just as the second sun reveals glimmers of light, beginning it's slow, inevitable ascent into the morning sky.

* * *

When they all get back to the infirmary, Clarke and Madi disappear into the privacy of their room. Neither one of them have said much since their reunion, and it's clear they just need some time and space to themselves. Nobody can grudge them that, not even Jackson, though he frowns after the pair of them as if he really wants them to stay within his line of sight for a few hours.

After the two of them walk out of the infirmary, leaning heavily on each other, Jackson mutters something about going to check on Diyoza and the baby. Bellamy realizes with a guilty start that he hasn't even spared a thought for them in the midst of all this chaos. He hopes the two of them are doing okay.

Miller follows Jackson out, and then it's only the four remaining members of Spacekru left in the waiting room. Echo lets out a long sigh and drops into a chair wearily. The others take their cue from her and collapse bonelessly into chairs. They all look like hell, faces covered with streaks of dust and exhaustion pouring off them in palpable waves.

"I would never have thought it possible," Murphy says, the first to break the silence. "What Madi said about their plan...I can't even imagine Clarke being desperate enough to..." He shakes his head, looking visibly distressed at the thought.

Bellamy knows exactly what he means. It _is_ hard to imagine Clarke that close to giving up, Clarke who was the Commander of Death and who has survived two nuclear apocalypses and lived through multiple wars. Questions and self-recriminations burn in his throat and he knows there's so much he needs to say, to ask her, but now is not the time.

"How did she do?" Echo asks. Bellamy gives her a quick look, not surprised, exactly, but struck by the note of concern in her voice. "She sounded like she was keeping it together, but there were a couple of moments I thought she was really going to lose it."

"She _was _keeping it together, just barely, until Jackson told us Madi would be okay," Raven answers. "Then she threw up and cried for thirty minutes straight."

They flinch collectively at the blunt description. In all the time he's known her, Bellamy has never seen her fall apart like that, and he has no idea where to even begin to fix this.

_You want forgiveness? _she'd told him what feels like a lifetime ago. _I'll give that to you. You're forgiven, okay?_

It had been enough then, but Bellamy doesn't think it's going to cut it now.

Not this time.

* * *

A few hours later finds Bellamy standing nervously outside Clarke and Madi's room, shifting his weight from foot to foot with uncharacteristic fidgetiness. He wants to go in more than anything but he can't bring himself to knock on the door.

"You know, just staring at it isn't going to open the door for you."

Raven's voice makes Bellamy jump. He turns to find her watching him with a knowing look in her eyes. He grimaces at her and shrugs, not really knowing what to say.

"Why don't you just go in? You know she'll want to see you."

"I fucked up, Raven." The words spill out like blood being lanced from a wound, completely out of his control. "I fucked up so badly. What I did to Madi, the fact that I didn't even _notice_ how alone Clarke was..."

"You're telling _me?_" Raven huffs out a mirthless laugh. "At least _you_ were talking to her. All I did was spend months making her feel guilty for doing something _we_ forced her into, and then threw her out of the council for being _right_ and giving us good advice." She sighs, meeting his eyes with a shame that's reflected in his. "We all have to do better, _all_ of us. For both of them, not just for Clarke. I would never have been able to forgive myself if Madi..."

"You wouldn't have been the only one."

"Do you know she insisted on bringing back those purple flowers?" Raven tells him. "Madi, I mean. Echo told me she made them all wait until Murphy could dig out one of the plants up from the roots so we could grow it and study it here. She didn't want it to all have been for nothing."

"God, she really is Clarke's daughter, isn't she."

"Yeah, she really is." Raven hesitates, then tells him quickly, "When you manage to work up the nerve to go in there, can you tell her we want her back on the council? Me and Echo and the others? We talked about it and she belongs there, with us."

"You should tell her that yourself," Bellamy chides her.

"I will," Raven promises, "but I'm not the one she wants to see right now, not with everything she's just been through, and I think she still needs to hear it from you."

"Does she?" he asks, hesitating again. "You said it yourself; she's been through so much. What if she needs more space?"

"She's had too much space lately. We need to start giving her less, not more." She turns to leave but then pauses and turns back, giving him a slight smile. "Besides, you should know by now that Clarke would never not want to see you, Bellamy. She's always cared about you the most."

Bellamy doesn't know if that's true, but he knows he can't stay out here forever. He squares his shoulders, takes a deep breath and knocks on the door. When there's no response, he pushes it open gently.

Clarke is lying in an upright position on the bed, her head tilted back against the pillows. Her eyes are closed and one hand rests gently on Madi's head, which is pillowed on her lap. Madi herself is curled on her side, facing the door. She has a big white bandage on one arm where she was injured but her face is relaxed and free of any signs of pain.

Bellamy takes a second to drink in the rare sight of the two of them resting and completely at peace. He's about to back out of the room when Madi's eyes snap open. She smiles at him warmly. "Hey," she greets him in a whisper.

"Hey there, kiddo." He squats down beside her, careful to keep his voice low so as not to disturb Clarke. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. How're you feeling?"

"Pretty good," Madi answers, "And you didn't wake me, I've been up for a while. I just didn't want to wake Clarke."

"Yeah, good call." A pause and then he adds, "You did so great today, kid. You were so brave, so strong. You didn't panic. Clarke has so many reasons to be so proud."

She gives him a wry look. "I mean, I did panic a little."

"Yeah, well, you're allowed to a little," he answers.

"I'm the whole reason we were out there in the first place," she says, frowning. "If I'd listened to my instincts, if I'd insisted we stay, everyone would have followed my lead."

"That wasn't on you," he says immediately, concerned that she still hasn't let this go, "It was on us for not listening to Clarke and trusting her judgment. I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am, how sorry we all are. If we ever made you feel like you needed to choose us over Clarke, or like you always had to put up a strong front for us, then we're the ones who are to blame for this mess. And...I'm so sorry for forcing the Flame on you back in Polis. It's my fault you were put in this situation in the first place."

"You didn't force me, Bellamy," she protests immediately. "You and Gaia both made it clear it was my choice."

"I told you it was the only way to stop the war and to save Clarke from Octavia," Bellamy reminds her. "It wasn't much of a choice." He sighs heavily. "You warned me she would never forgive me if we went through with it and I'm afraid you were right. What happened on Polis was one thing, but after what happened today..."

"She will forgive you, Bellamy," Madi says it without any doubt like it's a simple statement of fact. "I know I said she wouldn't, but I was wrong. I knew I was wrong even when I said it to you then. I've always known how she felt about you, right from the first time I saw her calling you on that radio. You have to know by now, too; you can't be that oblivious. She made those calls to _you_. Not to Raven, or Murphy, or Monty or Harper. It was always just to you, every day for six years. You _have_ to know what that means."

Bellamy feels suddenly caught, put on the spot. He isn't remotely prepared for this conversation. Not when he avoids thinking about this at all costs, because the idea of Clarke holding onto him for all those years while he was moving on, thinking she was dead, fills him with so much anguish and self-loathing that it threatens to drown him.

Madi is right about one thing, though. He _isn't_ that oblivious. He can't bring himself to deny the truth when she's asking him so directly, with no chance of evasion.

"Yeah, I know," he says hoarsely. "I've always known."

"Do you...did you ever feel the same way?" Madi asks, searching his face intently. "Was it just her, all that time?"

"Of course it wasn't just her." His eyes slip away from Madi's eyes to study the bedspread. He can't look at her when he says this. "Of _course_ I wanted that with her more than anything. I was in love with her; I was going to tell her that before she left to go fix the satellite, but she didn't want to hear any goodbyes from me. She was so sure she'd get back to us in time, and I let her go without saying it. I've regretted that every day since." He takes in a deep, shaky breath, feeling lightheaded and almost dizzy now that this long-kept secret is finally out of his system, even if he's telling the wrong Griffin. "None of that matters now."

"Because of Echo?" The question comes out small and disappointed.

"No, not because of Echo."

He can tell that Madi's invested in this too. He wonders if she'd once hoped that he would come down and save them and then stay with her and Clarke, so the three of them could be a happy family together. The thought brings stinging tears to his eyes but he blinks them back resolutely.

"Even if I didn't have Echo in my life, there's so much more I need to fix with Clarke before I could ever think of going down that road with her," he tells her. "You're right, she'll probably forgive me because that's who she is and that's what we've always done for each other, but forgiving me is very different from trusting me."

He takes in a shaky breath, collecting his thoughts as he tries to figure out how to put this so that Madi will be able to understand. "I don't know how we got to the point where she thought it _wouldn't matter to me_ if she was dead," he says finally, his voice breaking, "but until we get past that, until she _realizes_ she has other people to live for besides you, nothing else matters. Not my feelings for her or hers for me or all the chances we lost, because _that_ needs to be fixed before we can fix anything else." He pauses for a beat and then adds fiercely, "This time, I'm going to keep my promises. I'm going to be there for her and for you like I said I would, even if it means I have to spend the rest of my life showing her how much she matters."

He forces himself to look up at Madi, then, wanting to gauge her reaction to his impromptu confession, but the words die on his lips as his entire body jolts in shock.

Because Clarke is wide awake and she's staring right at him, with tears trailing down her cheeks and so much wonder and understanding and _love_ in her eyes that it takes Bellamy's breath away.

* * *

The following day is a quiet one. Raven, Murphy and the others are still keeping their distance from Clarke, waiting for Madi to recover before they approach her with any overtures or apologies. Clarke is clearly exhausted both physically and emotionally and the last thing she needs is to deal with any uncomfortable conversations.

Bellamy refuses to keep his distance from her, though, even if he is worried that things will be awkward after his confession the previous day. He'd said all of those things to Madi because she had pushed him, and because he'd needed to say them to _someone_. He had never intended to say any of it to Clarke. He worries it will strain things between them further, but instead, it does the opposite, easing an unspoken tension that he'd never even realized was there until it's gone.

He wonders if Madi had known Clarke was awake all along; if that was why she had asked him all those pointed questions. He can't be completely sure, but he's incredibly grateful to her anyway.

There's only one more thing left to talk about, a question that's going to eat him alive until he works up the courage to ask it. He waits until Madi shoos him and Clarke from the room so she can take a long and much-needed shower in privacy.

Locked out, the two of them wind up at one of the huge windows on Eligius IV, surveying the busy, bustling movements of the camp at mid-day.

"Can I ask you something?"

She tilts her head in his direction, curious but a little wary. "Yeah?"

He hesitates. "That plan that Madi was talking about, the one about the gun you kept on Eden...was that what it sounded like? Or did I misunderstand?"

He watches her face ripple with emotion before she averts her gaze from his. "It depends on what it sounded like. If you mean, did we have an...agreement, I guess you could call it, about what to do if one of us died, then yeah. We did."

He'd already known it, but hearing her admit it aloud is still a massive blow. He takes a second to recover from it and asks, "Madi too? You really told her if you died, you'd be okay with it if she just…?"

"No, of course not," says Clarke immediately. She looks flustered, as if she really doesn't know how to talk about this. "It wasn't like I just- I mean, it was never like I wanted her to-" She breaks off with a sound of frustration, irritated with her own inability to find the right words. "Look. You don't know what it was like, being all alone on a hostile planet which was doing its level best to kill us. Don't get me wrong, the valley was beautiful and I loved our home there. We had some wonderful, peaceful days together which I will cherish forever. But those first two months before I found her were a nightmare. I was so lonely and everything was so empty and there was no food or water. I almost gave up; I had a gun to my head and then I saw a bird and followed it into the valley."

She inhales deeply and turns to look at him. "Things got better after I found Madi, but I knew I couldn't survive alone again. I'd already decided about a week into knowing her that if I ever lost her, it would be the end of the road for me. Maybe that sounds weak, and maybe it was. I knew- well, I _hoped_ that you guys were out there and that you were coming back for me in five years, but you didn't even know I was _alive_. That plan was the only thing that kept me sane the first time she got sick with Desert Fever. I didn't even know what it was at first. I was so _sure_ I was going to lose her." Her voice breaks and she shudders.

As gut-wrenching as it is to hear all this, as much as it makes Bellamy want to rage and scream at the universe for putting her through it, he knows it isn't the full story. "And Madi?" he asks.

Clarke takes another deep breath. "The anxiety went both ways. She'd been on her own, too, until I found her. She was this tiny, feral little child, completely alone in the world. I have no idea how she survived those two months in a village full of the bodies of her parents and family, but it left its scars, you know? She had nightmares every night for a year after I found her. The first time I was seriously hurt, she completely fell apart. I accidentally impaled myself on this _massive_ piece of glass in the desert- it was so stupid to go out there right after a sandstorm but I was still figuring out the land at the time, so I didn't know any better."

Clarke pauses, lost in her memories of that day. "By the time I made it back to her, I was weak from blood loss. I guided her through patching me up- I'm honestly amazed she was able to keep it together through that, she was like, six, seven years old- and then I passed out for the next twelve hours."

Bellamy can picture it vividly; Clarke bleeding out while a terrified Madi tries to stitch her up with tiny, shaking hands. Eyes stinging, he reaches out and wraps his arms around Clarke. She melts into him almost immediately.

"I scared her so badly Bellamy," she says through a scraped throat. "She was out of her mind with worry. She clung to me for days after that, wouldn't let me out of her sight. Then I went and fell sick a couple of weeks later. I'm not sure if it was just the flu or if it was Desert Fever, but I was half out of my mind and Madi wouldn't leave my side. She was crying and crying and she wouldn't stop no matter what I said. She was so afraid I was going to die, I had to say _something_ to comfort her. So...I told her she didn't have to do it all on her own if she couldn't handle it. I told her where I'd kept my gun, the one I'd saved and carried with me since I left Becca's lab. I said I would understand if I died and she had to use it. And she stopped crying."

Bellamy's hold on Clarke is bruisingly tight, his heart pounding in his chest. He has no idea what to say, how to even begin to process any of this.

"After, when I got better, I tried to take it back. I would have never even have said it if I hadn't been delirious with fever, but she refused to hear it. She said it was the only thing letting her sleep at night. Eventually, I got her to agree that if it ever came down to it, she'd wait out the five years for you guys to come before she went actually went through with that."

Bellamy feels the color drain from his face, knowing if it _had_ happened that way, it would have been too late. He pictures coming down to Eden and stumbling across Madi's body, never knowing who she had been to Clarke, never knowing that Clarke had survived Praimfaya in the first place. The thought makes him shudder, bone deep.

"We never spoke of it after that. Not once until Madi brought it up yesterday. But we both knew the gun was there, an option. We kept it polished and loaded and hidden away securely. It was a comfort to know it was there, to know we wouldn't have to live in that world without each other if we were ever truly at the end of our rope." Clarke swallows hard. "I know it sounds awful and fatalistic. Sometimes I wonder if I was a terrible mother for even putting that option on the table. Maybe I am, but it didn't feel so terrible then. It felt like mercy."

In the silence that follows, the only thing that can be heard is Bellamy's ragged breathing. Clarke reaches up and wipes at the wetness on his cheeks. He leans his head against hers and tries to compose himself.

"It's not, anymore," he tells her when he can trust himself to speak, "I hope you know that, Clarke. I hope you can see it, because Madi was right. You have people now. Me, Emori, Murphy- even Raven and Echo, who are going to be clamoring at your door to apologize any day now. We'll figure out how to get your mom out of cryo soon, too, so you'll have her too. T-his _can't_ be an option for you anymore, Clarke. Please tell me you know that."

"Yeah, okay," she says.

He doesn't quite believe her, but he doesn't force the issue. There's no point making her promise something if she doesn't believe it. This can't be fixed overnight, and he meant what he said to Madi about giving Clarke the time she needs. She deserves that.

"I hope you know how sorry I am," he tells her. "For ignoring your warnings and not trusting you, for forcing the flame on Madi and leaving you chained up in Polis, for implying you weren't my family when that couldn't be further from the truth. I can't ever apologize enough for all of it, and I know I don't deserve your forgiveness."

"I don't want any apologies," she tells him, frowning. "Not from you, and not from anyone else. I messed up too, so badly, and I'm _tired_ of talking about forgiveness and all the mistakes we made. I don't want you- or them- walking on eggshells around me or trying to have awkward, heartfelt conversations. I just want things to go back to normal, whatever the hell that is."

"And they will," Bellamy assures her, making a mental note to tell the others. "Will you rejoin the council? We all want you back. Raven told me to invite you."

"She did?"

"Yeah, she did," he tells her. "We have a meeting in two days. Will you be there?"

She hesitates, torn. "I'll think about it."

He nods, disappointed but not wanting to push her. They lapse into silence. His arm is still wrapped securely around her, and it's quiet and peaceful between them for the first time in so long. No walls, nothing unspoken or tense as they watch the landscape and the movements of their people at midday against the backdrop of a harsh, barren landscape that's finally starting to feel like home.

"Diyoza and the baby are doing great, by the way. Jackson checked on them yesterday. He says they only need another day of monitoring. The baby is breathing better and feeding normally."

"I didn't even think to look in on them yesterday," says Clarke in guilty realization.

Bellamy waves this away. "You were right outside their room all night. She would have called if she needed help." He studies Clarke and adds, "She's naming the baby in English and Trig. Branon Hope."

"Branon means new, right? _New hope?_ That's pretty fitting."

"Yeah, it is."

Diyoza had known exactly what she was doing choosing that name. It's a touching indication of where they all are as a group of people, of what this new beginning and this new planet can be for them. They don't talk about it often, but Bellamy knows that every one of them, all the different tribes and factions, feel the weight of their bloody history and their promise to do better. He has no doubt the entire camp will fall in love with Diyoza's baby, if not for her own sake then for what she's going to represent.

It's that thought which prompts him to say, "You know...you gave her life. Branon Hope. I mean, you were there when she was born."

"Yeah," she says, frowning in confusion. "So?"

"So you're not the Commander of Death anymore, Clarke," he tells her gently. "You delivered the first child born on this planet. She was weak and she was premature, but she's going to survive. So will we."

Her face melts into an expression that's pleased and soft and she nods her understanding, tucking her head against his shoulder again.

Minutes drift by in peaceful silence, and then Clarke says, hesitant but with a fledgling confidence, "Hey, uh. You can tell Raven and the others I'll be there for the council meeting." She pauses and then clarifies more firmly, "You can tell them I _want_ to be there."

His heart soars. "You do?"

"I do." She returns his smile, genuine and heartfelt.

Arm in arm, they watch the landscape together; two suns high in the sky, shining down on their people and their new world, harsh and arid and starkly beautiful as it stretches out into the future.

* * *

_Take the spade from my hands and fill in the holes you've made_

_Plant your hope with good seeds_

_Don't cover yourself with thistle and weeds_

_Rain down, rain down on me_

* * *

A Few Notes:

The Thank Yous:

This is the first new fic I've written in years, and also the first one I've written in this fandom. I've gotten into the habit of lurking a lot in recent years and have stopped writing as regularly as I used to. I needed a kick in the pants to find the motivation to write something substantial again, and I want to thank **theinvisibledisaster** on A03 (formerly talistheintrovert) for giving me that. I'm dedicating this to her as a thank you for motivating me to write this.

The Medicine:

The diseases, injuries and treatments referenced in this story are loosely based on actual research (mostly on Google), but I don't pretend to have any degree of accuracy, and I definitely took a few creative liberties. I do want to note that the most far-fetched thing in the story, the electroshock therapy as a treatment for deadly snakebites, is an actual thing. It was tried by a couple of doctors in the rainforests of Ecuador in the 1980s. It has since been debunked as a legitimate treatment because though there was a lot of anecdotal evidence that it worked, they could never actually prove it in a lab.

The Bellarke:

I am a hardcore Bellarke shipper so it kills me that I wasn't able to get them together at the end of the fic. I just couldn't see it happening that easily, not with the way things were between them during season 5. I think it's going to take a long time for Clarke to heal first. (And of course, Echo is also still in the picture and I tried to do justice to her as well). I'm honestly not sure if the Clarke and Bellamy of this story will ever actually work out a way to be together or if they will just end up with the platonic soulmate thing they have when they are at their best on the show. I'll leave that up to you to decide!


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